


Near Death Experiments

by misura



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: First Meetings, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 18:06:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15152693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: "Excuse me, are you lost?"





	Near Death Experiments

Bodhi was lost.

Under other circumstances, in another place, he might have felt a little embarrassed. Getting lost - well, it happened, didn't it? You were walking around, your mind wandered, and next thing you knew, you had no idea whatsoever where you were or where you were supposed to be going next.

 _'A convincing story, Pilot Rook,'_ Bodhi pictured his superior saying, right before a couple of stormtroopers hauled him away to who-knew-where, never to be seen again.

He shivered. As if it wasn't bad enough worrying about the Rebels - in both senses of the word.

Bodhi'd grown up on Jedha; it wasn't _that_ unlikely one or more of his childhood friends would have up and joined Saw Gerrera. Any time he delivered a cargo there, Bodhi thought that this time for sure, he'd turn around and find someone was about to blow up his ship with him still in it.

He supposed he might explain that really, a job was just a job, and his family'd needed the money, and it wasn't as if cargo pilots weren't a dime a dozen. It wasn't as if he was personally oppressing anyone.

 _'A convincing story, Bodhi Rook,'_ he pictured them saying. Right before they killed him.

(How did other people deal with this? _How?_ He'd met plenty of other people in his line of work, and sure, a few of them were bad apples, but most of them seemed just regular, normal people like Bodhi himself, trying to make a living, not thinking too much about where that pay chit was coming from. After all, it was a big Empire. You quit or made trouble, it'd take them a day tops to find a replacement.)

Someone behind him cleared their throat. (Singular. So probably human, or human-ish, at least.)

Bodhi froze. Then he realized that freezing made him look guilty, as if he knew that he wasn't supposed to be here - too late, of course, to do him any good. "Yes?" he asked, not turning.

Maybe he'd only imagined the sound. Maybe there wasn't anyone there, really. Maybe -

"Excuse me, are you lost?"

Bodhi could have wept, or hugged someone. "Yes, actually," he said, turning around, "funny story, I - "

Facing him was an Imperial science officer. Not bad-looking - in fact, rather on the attractive side, and Bodhi knew better than to believe any Rebel propaganda about illegal experiments and planet killers and stuff like that, but still. 

_Breathe, Bodhi._ A stormtrooper might have been worse. Just about anyone else would have been better, though. An engineer, for example. A service droid. A fellow pilot.

The science officer smiled. It made him look even more attractive, which was unfair. Bodhi felt reasonably sure that he was looking at death personified.

"You know what, never mind, you're probably busy." Bodhi swallowed. "So the exit's this way, yes? Great, thank you so much."

Death personified raised his hands. They were empty, which should have reassured Bodhi, but didn't.

"The exit's that way, in fact. Back where you came from."

"Ah," Bodhi said intelligently. "Yes. I must have gotten turned around somewhere. You know how it goes." Unlikely, but worth a try.

The man studied him for a while. Bodhi squirmed and tried to think of a good way to escape both execution and 'volunteering' for one experiment or another. "Are you with Rebel Intelligence?"

Bodhi managed not to choke. Sure, he'd half-expected the question to be asked, but not right off the bat. More, like, in a cell, with him all tied down and weeping for his mother, with some sadistic interrogation droid standing at the ready to dose him with a drug that would make him allergic to breathing or something.

"Rebel Intelligence? You think I'm with Rebel Intelligence?" _Idiot! Deny it!_ Bodhi tried to chuckle a bit, as if an accusation like that was hilarious, rather than a guaranteed death sentence - if he was lucky. "Um. No. I just got lost. Completely lost. I'm a pilot, you know. Cargo pilot. Very poor sense of direction. Bodhi Rook."

Should he have given a fake name? Bodhi felt as if that would have been smarter. On the off chance he got out of here, having given a fake name would definitely have been much safer.

"Pleasure to meet you, Bodhi Rook." A hand was extended; Bodhi shook it more or less on auto-pilot, because his mama (both his mamas, as well as all of his aunts) had raised him to be a nice, polite boy.

 _Dare I hope the pleasure's not all yours?_ he almost asked, but it seemed too risky. Better to let this play out, see where this was going. "Um. You work here, then? On the secret project?"

"Are you sure you're not with Rebel Intelligence, Mr Rook?"

Bodhi spotted an opening. "Yes. Very sure. Mr ... ?"

All right, so getting the guy's name wasn't much of a priority right now. Still, it'd be nice to have a name to put with the face, if he survived this. Or even if he didn't, Bodhi supposed. He'd heard that memories gave people the strength to hold on, in prison, to stay sane and wait for rescue.

Not that anyone'd be coming to save _him_ , probably. A good-for-nothing cargo pilot who'd just had the bad luck of getting lost.

"Erso. Please, call me Galen," Erso-Please-Call-Me-Galen said. (So ... Galen.)

"Hi," said Bodhi, feeling like an idiot the moment the word had left his mouth. Galen was smiling again, though, so it really wasn't his fault.

"Perhaps you'd like to sit down and have something to drink?" Galen offered. "My shift ended fifteen minutes ago," he added, as if Bodhi would care about that.

_Can I watch your hands while we do that, to make sure you don't call Security on me?_

"Um," said Bodhi. He didn't quite see how his situation could be made worse if he agreed. On the other hand, Galen was attractive and an officer and Bodhi was, well, a cargo pilot. "Yes?"

"My personal quarters are this way," Galen said. "Unless you'd prefer - "

"No," Bodhi said quickly. He wondered if he was being seduced. Or set up to quietly disappear. Both options felt like distinct possibilities. "No. Privacy sounds good. Cosy."

Galen frowned at him. Bodhi wondered what he'd said wrong. Perhaps Imperial officers didn't like the word 'cosy'? Maybe it was a code word?

Maybe Galen was actually _expecting_ someone from Rebel Intelligence to show up and now he was thinking that either Bodhi was that person, only without the proper code words, or that Bodhi was not, which meant Bodhi now posed a threat to Galen's position and life, who needed to be eliminated ASAP? _Should I tell him that I'm from Rebel Intelligence after all? I can say I've just forgotten the code words or something - that has to happen sometimes, right? I mean, people forget things all the time._

"You seem nervous." Galen was back to smiling. "Relax. You think you're the first person to get lost here?"

 _Do I want to know what happened to all the others?_ "Nervous?" Bodhi asked. "Me?"

"It's just - " Galen hesitated. "I'd welcome the chance to talk to someone new. A fresh face, so to speak. We've been stuck here for a long time now. It gets a bit boring, after a while. That's all."

 _I wish_ my _life got a bit more boring._ Bodhi took a deep breath and took the plunge. What did he have to lose but his job, his freedom and his life, after all? "I'm not in any trouble, then?"

"Not at all," Galen said, looking like he felt a bit shocked at the idea of Bodhi getting in any trouble.

"And you'll show me the way out, yes? To the shuttle port?" Bodhi pressed, reasoning he might as well go all in. "I'm a cargo pilot, you know. I don't show up for work in time tomorrow, I'm fired."

"I could show you right now, if you're that worried," Galen offered. "We can save the drink for another time. Or forego it altogether, if you'd rather."

Finally, an easy choice. Bodhi shook his head. "No. That's all right. A drink sounds good. And sitting down. A drink and sitting down." _And maybe a bit of kissing?_ Not that Bodhi was the kind of pilot with a lover in every port - more the kind of pilot with no lover anywhere.

And Eadu was a pain to get to, anyway. Lots of clearances and inspections and checks; a number of his fellow pilots would be all too happy to trade cargos with him in order to not have to go there.

_If this works out, it might be the beginning of a beautiful romance._

And if it didn't, well, he might always get killed next time he went to Jedha.


End file.
